


In Translation

by emmykay



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 19:23:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2399963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmykay/pseuds/emmykay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a lot to learn about communication in a relationship, especially for them.  Adult!Hanai and Adult!Abe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Translation

**Author's Note:**

> **translate** \- origins: Middle English: from Old French, or from Latin translatio(n-), from translat- ‘carried across’ - google definition
> 
> "If translation be an art, it is no easy one." [ref](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation)
> 
> In art as in love, instinct is enough. - Anatole France
> 
> * * *

They came back into contact at a reunion for the Nishiura baseball team during the early spring. It was the first time they'd seen each other in years; university, jobs, and family had taken up all the intervening time. Hanai and Abe were among the few that had come alone.

Hanai noticed Abe's surprising height and width of shoulder. He was still the taller, but the distance seemed a lot smaller now. The natural downward droop of Abe's eyes widened a little as he looked at Hanai's hairstyle, as if he couldn't quite get over the way it curled on the crown and stood up in a short buzz at the nape. They sat next to each other at the table, and the camaraderie came back, first slowly, and then in a rush. They had always been among the more technically inclined of the Nishiuras; it made sense that Abe worked in an engineering firm and Hanai had become an English teacher in a high school. Nishihiro was plodding his way through graduate school, Sakaeguchi was running a child care center, Oki, and Suyama and Hamada were all working for different companies. Mizutani and Izumi weren't able to make it.

Hanai confirmed that Abe was, indeed, single. Abe seemed surprised to find out that Hanai was similarly unpartnered and still living at home with his parents. Everyone else was married or coupled in some other way. Abe grinned around his beer at Hanai's quips, nodded in sympathy with his stories of woeful students, and joked about his jealousy at Tajima's and Mihashi's professional sports careers.

They parted on good terms, with a vague promise to meet up again.

So when Hanai got the text from Abe about dinner the following week, he was surprised enough to text back right away.

They met in front of the restaurant. The dinner was pleasant, like sliding into a bath at the end of the day; warm, comfortable. Abe was smart, wryly funny, logical, deeply driven to make a point. Hanai felt like he was his best self, talking with Abe. Like holding out a small gem, and seeing that Abe saw what he saw; not the size or shape but the patterns it created as it spun, taking light from elsewhere and reflecting it back in a myriad of ways. It was like old times. Maybe better.

He was sorry when they parted, with a handclasp that went a little long. 

They met more times; when dinner wasn't possible, they had coffee or just drinks. A few times, they just walked around. Once, they went to a professional ballgame, but had to be warned by security to pipe down because their neighbors complained about how loud they were. Abe couldn't believe a simple discussion with everybody around them about which team had the shittier catcher could be so easily misconstrued as an argument.

Somewhere along the way, Hanai casually mentioned something about how attractive he found a particular male actor. Abe blinked, blinked again, and responded with the name of one he preferred. Another time, Hanai asked about Abe's past partners. There hadn't been many of them, but Abe indicated, in so many words, that at least one was male. Hanai responded with a story about his last boyfriend.

They launched into conversations about their romantic pasts, which were both on the short side; Hanai had always been busy and historically fussy, Abe had been equally busy, but admitted to being less fussy. He confessed to not understanding why he hadn't had a longer list. Hanai had laughed - looking into Abe's dark eyes, the rueful angle of his sharp eyebrows, the sardonic quirk of his lips, he thought maybe Abe did understand, a little. Abe allowed that, maybe, just maybe, he wasn't as good at small talk as he could be. Glittering repartee had never been his strong suit. Not that was a problem now. Hanai smiled. 

The times they could meet were constrained by Hanai's long work day and Abe's job, where he had to travel at least four days out of each week. After a few months, Abe was the one to indicate, in his blunt way, that perhaps they should do something about all this meeting.

They were on one of their walks around a park. Summer was well underway, the trees were in full emerald green, the children they passed were dressed in light cotton clothes, the salarymen had taken off their jackets and were carrying them on their shoulders. Abe began to slow down. 

Hanai looked around, concerned. Before he could speak, he was pulled toward a tree, and then up against it. He looked down and saw Abe's hands gripping the lapels of his coat, he looked up and saw the anxiousness in Abe's eyes. 

"What's going on?" Hanai asked.

Abe began to turn pink.

"Are we being followed by a creep?"

Fully red now in the face, Abe admitted that was not the case.

"Then - ?" 

Abe muttered something, and Hanai had to lean down to hear. Only then did Abe reach up, running his hand across the back of Hanai's head, through the short buzzcut, and kiss him full on the mouth, his teeth pressing hard against Hanai's lower lip. Hanai jerked away, with Abe's face appearing suddenly blank, panicky. 

"This way, moron," Hanai said, and settled in for a better kiss.

Up until then, Hanai had been afraid to call it what he wanted to call it. What he thought it must be. His mother had confronted him, asking if he was dating anybody, the way he was suddenly smiling and oddly dreamy, but he disagreed. Partly because he didn't think it was anybody's business, but mostly because he was afraid that he fundamentally misunderstood what was happening. It had happened before. But it seemed that now, yes, he was fully involved. 

Sex required a lot of talk before it actually happened. Neither was the type that even if they could get away with 'not talking about it' before would be able to handle the 'not talking about it' aftermath. Medically, they were both healthy. They discussed their previous sexual histories in more detail. On one hand, Hanai was selfishly glad that Abe didn't have more to discuss. On the other, if he were to judge by their first kiss, well, he could understand why there wasn't more.

A hotel would have been a reasonable solution, but the first one they walked into had choices so terrible that they turned right around and walked out. Abe was not interested in living out either the "caveman" nor the "musketeer" fantasies. The second hotel, less boutique-style, turned out to be full. At the third one, Hanai spotted the car of somebody he knew. Someone he didn't want him see with what could be construed as a booty call. It was a farce, with Hanai's desire to turn his current non-existent sex life into an actual thing as the dramatic center of hilariously bad luck. Abe's apartment was small and in a noisy part of town, but considering that Hanai still lived with his parents, it was the best solution. 

Abe's place was surprisingly empty for being so small. It had a miniscule kitchen, television, kotatsu, and he only owned a single futon. Not a single picture on the wall or decorative knick-knack. Perhaps that was why Abe was overcompensating - Hanai felt that Abe had overstocked, just a little, when he began pulling condoms and lube out of one jacket pocket, and then another, and then another. Their first time was cramped, awkward, anxious, uncomfortable, and desperate. It was over pretty quickly. It was also incredibly hot. Their second time was better.

As Hanai hurried to work early that morning, autumn was very much in the air, the leaves falling, the chill of winter beginning to creep in the morning. (He had tried very hard not to equate his current feelings with previous walks of shame. Especially when his mother caught him sneaking into the house that morning.) They met again that evening, Hanai calling his mother to make some kind of excuse. She accepted it without comment. The next day, Abe left for a five day jaunt to Brussels.

The first day Abe was gone, Hanai noticed that his mom was unusually quiet. She asked only if he was happy. Was he? 

Hanai felt the tips of his ears turn warm when he nodded. As the days passed, he felt himself swinging from the early I-just-had-mmmhmmm-sex-after-a-long-drought euphoria to a kind of placid waiting and then to an anxiousness that things perhaps he had imagined things different than they were.

By the fourth day, Hanai's mother was looking at him curiously. "Are you okay?" she asked.

He could only nod. Admitting anything at this stage of a relationship, he felt, was premature. Besides, what could he say? 'Mom, five days ago, I starting banging a guy I've known since high school. And it's already pretty complicated.' He'd rather set himself on fire than talk to his mom about this. Especially since he had the sneaking suspicion she would have preferred, if given a choice, that he wind up with a different one of his high school baseball teammates. 

When Abe returned, he had brought back several boxes of chocolates. Almost all of them would go to various relatives, but one was given to Hanai.

The next trip was to Shanghai. Upon his return, Abe described the food; the carp, the pork buns, the crispy chicken while they ate instant ramen over the kotatsu. He handed Hanai a large souvenir tin of tea.

When Abe came back from his third trip, a long one to Detroit, he talked about the people he met, the game his team was comped and the 'Coney Island' hot dogs even though he didn't think there was a place called Coney Island in Michigan. This time, he gave Hanai a Tigers baseball cap. And a copy of his apartment key.

Hanai had done little, at least, nothing new. He continued to teach his classes, advise the baseball club, and hide his relationship from his mother. (He felt grateful his sisters were married and out of the house, hence out of his hair.) He felt the edges of jealousy, jealousy of everybody Abe was meeting, everything Abe was seeing, nudging in on the happiness of their reunions and began to understand a bit more about why Abe had been single. 

As the weeks went by, they cobbled together a routine. They met when they could, sleeping over at Abe's apartment when he was in town. Hanai had helped Abe purchase a few housewares, suddenly making the formerly barren little apartment a lot more welcoming. When they couldn't be together, they emailed each other as their schedules allowed.

Hanai's mother had stopped asking where he was going at night. He devoutly hoped it meant she trusted him and not that she had resigned herself to the idea that perhaps her son was regularly hustling on a street corner to supplement his smallish teacher's salary. But, as he was still unwilling to talk to her about it, he remained grateful for her discretion.

Winter arrived with a sudden chill and a brief fall of snow. The small flakes glittered like diamonds as they fell.

It was funny; Hanai began to stop keeping track of exactly where Abe was at any time and began to better pin down exactly when Abe would be his. The jealousy went hand in hand with the worry. He tried to damp both down as much as possible. They were already a sparky couple, ready to speak their own minds at the least urging. The additional burden of the distance began to wear and lead to some hard questions about where the relationship was headed. Neither was capable of answering that fully, so they both apologized. It was their first real argument. They went to bed, uncomfortably close on the single futon.

Abe began work on an exceptionally complicated project, one he couldn't give much detail on. Those details he could give were either so vague as to be useless, or so technical that Hanai couldn't follow. As the first overseas trip of this round ended, Abe seemed thrilled to see Hanai, but he looked terrible, dark circles under his eyes. While Hanai was pleased Abe was pleased to see him, he worried as he put the both of them to bed. Hanai noticed that Abe had purchased a new futon, big enough for two to sleep comfortably without touching. He missed the old futon.

The second trip caused Abe to be completely exhausted. He fell asleep at the kitchen table while Hanai was talking. He jerked awake after a moment, and apologized: the jetlag was particularly difficult this time of year. Hanai nodded, unhappily, things were going to continue to be this way, knowing it was the nature of Abe's job and he knew this before they started this - whatever this was. 

Abe was even working late during the evenings now, barely making it home at all before Hanai went to bed. He was gone on his next trip almost before Hanai registered that Abe had come back at all.

* * *

Hanai was at home, sitting in the living room with his mom, watching the news, when his phone went off.

From Abe Takaya:  
 _Ik hou van je_

He frowned. What was this? Could Abe have sent this to the wrong person? 

"What is it?" his mother looked at him, curious.

"Nothing," he replied. This was definitely not a language Hanai knew. He swung through the apps on the phone until he hit a translator. If this was what it translated from, Dutch to Japanese, when Abe hadn't said it to his face - Hanai was set to be irritated. He growled at the screen.

"Your noises don't make it seem like 'nothing.'"

"Really, mom. It's nothing."

Abe was in Rotterdam. Was Dutch spoken in Rotterdam? He didn't know whether to be happy that he received this message or pissed that Abe didn't have the balls to say it to his face. Shit. His thumb hovered over the 'delete' button, but ultimately he decided he couldn't do it. Even if he had to run this through a translator, he needed to keep this first declaration. He was going to forget about this message and wait for Abe. He was owed an explanation.

When Abe came home, Hanai didn't say anything about the message, although he did talk about the other ones Abe sent - the ones about the food, the factory, the new manager. They went shopping together, ate, had slow, gentle sex, slept together for several days. Abe seemed a little expectant, but Hanai was stubborn. He was going to wait until Abe admitted what he had sent. 

Hanai was stubborn enough that there was still no explanation when Abe got on the plane for Shanghai.

From Abe Takaya:  
 _我爱你_

Hanai was pissed, but said nothing when Abe returned, a container of tea tucked into his luggage, which he placed into the cupboard where Hanai was in the habit of keeping the beverage things. Hanai was rather fond of that tea. Surprisingly, his mother had begun to stock it in her kitchen as well. (Hanai didn't have the heart to tell Abe that apparently, it was possible to procure this special Chinese tea in their local supermarket.)

* * *

The next trip was to Venice. Sure enough, the first full day Abe was in Italy, Hanai received a message.

From Abe Takaya:  
 _Ti Amo_

Hanai started laughing, simultaneously angry and yet incredibly touched. He didn't know if he'd ever felt those things with such intensity during a relationship before. He didn't even have to run it through the phone translator app, although he did. Just to be sure.

Abe had brought back a leather belt for Hanai, and a glass vase for the living area.

"Why?" Hanai asked.

"It seemed right for this room," Abe said. He placed it next to the television.

"Because you never did anything like that before," Hanai said.

"Do you like it?"

Hanai frowned and moved it to the window, where a ray of thin winter sunshine shone through, cause the glass to glow in a myriad of gem-like colors. "Yes," he said, nodding.

* * *

Abe had to suddenly go back to Detroit.

Hanai rattled around his parents house, pulling together a dinner, annoyed he couldn't find the big spoon. Then he remembered. His parents' house didn't have a big spoon, the big spoon he was thinking of was at Abe's apartment. A pang struck his midsection; he missed their things there. He missed Abe. 

From Abe Takaya:  
 _I love you._

Hanai smiled. That asshole jerkbag boyfriend of his. Writing that in English.

"Hanai, you okay?" his mom asked, walking into the kitchen. "You're making a lot of noise. Did you lose something?"

"Hey, Mom," he said, turned to face her. "I wanted to tell you - I've been seeing someone."

"That's great." But the way she said it, stilted and forced, struck Hanai oddly.

"Is it really great? Because - "

"Mrs. Abe told me in the grocery store almost three months ago!" she burst out, and then grasped herself about the mid-section in relief. "Holy crap! I can't believe I held onto that for that long!"

"Mom? Mom!" cried Hanai. "You knew? Why didn't you say?"

"You seemed like you wanted to tell me in your own time." She smiled. "Abe's a nice boy. He's a little intense, but you were never the kind to go for the easy types." She stood up. "I need a drink. Do you want something? Tea?" She pulled out the electric kettle and filled it.

"Yeah." Hanai relaxed against the counter. He felt he might be in for a long conversation with his mom, now that his cover had been officially blown.

Kikue smiled at her son while the water heated. "I do really like this tea," she said, pulling out a familiar tin. "Mrs. Abe drops it off, you know."

* * *

Hanai was half-asleep, nodding over the kotatsu while grading. His eyes opened when he heard the sound of the door opening. Abe thumped in, about to throw his bags on the floor, when he saw Hanai and halted.

"I got your message," Hanai said. He yawned and stretched. He lifted up his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

Abe looked suddenly nervous. "Oh, yeah?"

Hanai nodded. " _Messages._ "

"How did you translate them?" 

Hanai looked confused. "Phone app."

Abe looked murderously annoyed. "Shit. Shi--iiit!"

"What?" Hanai said, curious, cautious. "How did you do it?"

"I asked people."

Hanai began to laugh. "You - you! You talked? To people?"

Abe blushed. "The desk people at the hotels were very nice. Sometimes I had to ask a waitress, or the group translator. Showing them the phone history was very helpful."

The idea of Abe, who found it difficult to talk to people he knew, asking total strangers for their help with such an intimate message, for Hanai, was simultaneously hilarious and deeply touching. "But - but - why?"

Abe appeared desperately anxious, and Hanai was brought to mind the very first time he had met Mihashi. "I'm not good with words, Hanai. How am I supposed to tell you?"

"How about in plain old Japanese?"

"I've never gotten this far with anybody else - except one and he left." Abe's eyes dropped to the ground. "He didn't want me - like that."

Hanai could feel the simultaneous wrenching of his heart in sympathy and a terrible anger at this mysterious 'he.' He put it away - he'd deal with this later. He was still curious about this situation. "But why all the other languages?"

Abe looked up. "I thought about you a lot while I was gone that first trip. And I really wanted to tell you. But texting you that in Japanese - that's not right. Not for the first time. So I tried in other languages. I thought you'd like it. You like other languages - you teach English, right? When you didn't say anything, I was afraid you didn't get it. So I tried again. And again."

"For a smart guy, Abe, you are stupid as hell."

Abe looked genuinely alarmed. "How do I tell you that this isn't 'my apartment' any more - it's 'our apartment' and I can't sleep here without you, that when I go anywhere without you, I think about how you would like this trip, this food, these people. That I hate being without you, anywhere in the world." He swallowed. "It will be a few more months, but I put in for a change at the company and I'll be home more."

"Okay, okay," Hanai said, hands up, palms toward Abe. "Let's try this again. In Japanese. To my face."

Abe gulped. "Okay. 私はあなたを愛して."

Hanai could feel himself start to smile, and the smile got wider and wider. It was a fool's smile. And that was okay, because he knew he was a fool. A fool in love with Abe Takaya, the worst jerkbag of a terrible communicator of a boyfriend ever. And Abe was waiting, looking worried.

"I love you, too," Hanai said. And then, quietly, in English, he said, " _You dumb fuck._ "

"Hey!" Abe said, indignant and incredibly relieved. "I think I understood that!"

"Good. You will tell me things as soon as you know them, you will be honest and you will not hide things from me that are about us, okay?" Hanai said, in his strictest teacher's voice.

Abe nodded, head bobbing furiously. 

"--and you will not tell your mother so she tells my mother before I'm ready to tell her, you understand?" Hanai said.

"But - " Abe looked taken aback. "You didn't tell your mother?"

"I'm working on it," Hanai admitted. He carefully took off his glasses and placed them on the kotatsu. Then he pounced on Abe, tumbling them both to the floor. He looked down on Abe's surprised face. "Now, tell me again."

Hanai found his vision blurred and his center of gravity changed as Abe flipped them both over, winding up on top. He leered down at Hanai. "Which way do you want it?"

Smiling up at the cocky smirk on Abe's face, Hanai said, "Any way you care to give it to me."

**Author's Note:**

> Unlike Abe, I used google translate. Apologies for any errors. Corrections gratefully accepted.
> 
> The trips Abe took are largely based upon locations of Fuji Heavy Industries plants or airports near those plants.
> 
> This was supposed to be a filthy pornish paean to L's blindfolded NSFW Hanai [ ◊](http://whythemadman.tumblr.com/post/98899415159/more-obscure-curly-hair-hanai-sorry) but then I started thinking about how these two losers would meet before the Big Bang and then had all the wrong kind of feelings (all smushy and cute instead of hunka hotness) and I got in too deep with the fluff.  Sorry. 


End file.
